So many new podcasts. At least the voices in our heads are staying fresh … and there really is more news and analysis related to poker and gaming and casinos and gambling than you can read all over the internet.

Some shows I recently found and/or enjoyed … you may want to give a listen, and perhaps bookmark for recurring download:

Poker Fraud Alert Forum Radio — I try to steer clear of industry love triangles, but sometimes can’t avoid the latest Donkdown breakup story. New and clique-worthy from Druff and Drexel: the pilot episode of their version of the old show, complete with real newschat about a botched pepper-spray robbery for Bellagio cranberries (as per plans hatched on Craigslist), the felony arrest of alleged exposed Vegas scammer Peter Falcone, and informed tangential discussion of female biology on, off, and under the table. http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/radio.php

neverheeb gives us an update about his life, his recent forays with his “dome”, and his life as a witness in a major criminal case. Druff and Micon talk a bit about their forum spat this past week. Melanie Weisner impersonates a phone sex operator, and we call an actual phone sex line to compare. We attempt to reach Chino for a scheduled interview, but he backs out of it, so badguy23 threatens him again. Pokerati talks about the online poker legalization effort through Congress. An attempt is made to analyze the actual words of the “Put the pole in the bowl” Sugar Bear commercial. We talk about two giant ferris wheels supposedly coming to Vegas. Brandon reveals that Shaun Deeb will never come on this show because he hates one of the hosts.[audio:http://www.donkdown.com/components/com_podcast/itunes/DDRadio-2011_08_17_19_00_00.mp3|titles=DonkDown Radio 08/17/2011|autostart=no]

Travis Makar and Barry Greenstein

Special Monday afternoon program where we focus on Travis Makar’s latest bombshells about the UB scandal, as well as questions for Travis from Barry Greenstein. Greenstein also confronts Druff about alleged mistreatment of his stepson Joe Sebok. Druff talks about his unwillingness to confront Annette Obrestad at the WSOP for wearing a Full Tilt patch. Micon obsesses over bitcoins. We talk about Men the Master’s fracas with Hollywood Dave at a WSOP table.

We talk about the 2nd round of DOJ indictments, this time with Doyle’s Room, Bookmaker, and True Poker being the victims. Neverheeb calls us to tell us of his car-jacking and pistol-whipping, an event covered by a Bay Area newspaper! We prank call Bodog and try to get them to offer bets on the future of their own site. The Cake Poker 60k confiscation fiasco is discussed. Pokerati Dan joins us to talk more about the legal environment for online poker. Druff announces that he’s quitting online poker until it becomes legal in the US. An update on our WSOP media pass situation is given. We talk about the situation with Pokerstars shills, including owner Isai Scheinberg, on 2+2 for the past nine years! We discuss the Quicktender/Usemywallet collapse. Micon shits the bed and his actual toilet during the show.

Live talk emerges from ashes, degens

A few interesting things have taken place since the implosion of online poker we’ve been warning you about here at Pokerati for about nine months became a reality.

We’ll save the 9/11 comparisons for later — because no one has died yet — and it’s just kinda coincidental that the DOJ has 9 charges against 11 defendants. But there seems to be a need for people to talk through these matters openly and honestly … and in kinda an organic way, the few truly independent operations (that don’t rely on Stars, Tilt, or UB for their existence) have come together to fill that void.

It’s been a rather loose-aggressive media emergence … with old-school cooperation in play. Pokerati has taken part … Tom Schneider, myself were on for the first few hours, Mark Gahagan is on now, and I’m about to rejoin to share some new information. Others that have been on have included Dutch Boyd, Scott Matusow, Micon-Brandon-and-Dandruff from Donkdown, The Maven, Kevmath, Pete the Blunt-smoker, Thomas the Rapper … as well as just regular ole online poker players sharing their stories about how a “little” government action has greatly affected their lives.

Anyhow, blah blah blah to infinity … the podcast that won’t stop is still going on — they’ve been going for 48 hours so far, with no sign of stopping, even if Marco eventually needs a nap. More than 1,000 listeners at this moment, so check out the chat room and keep it on for background music. Here’s the link:

Andrew Feldman and Phil Gordon are joined this week by Chad Brown. Before getting to Brown the two discuss recent poker news and lay out some details for Feldman Challenge will Feldman will take on someone in 25 to 250 hands at $0.01/$0.02. After finishing up the news Brown comes on to discuss his recent battle with cancer, including how it was found and the surgery to remove the tumor. He also breaks down what the future looks like and equates giving himself the best chance to stay cancer free to poker. You can listen to the entire podcast on ESPN.com, or download it directly via iTunes.

Two Plus Two Pokercast:

It’s been a while since these guys made it on the roundup but this week they were joined by Pokerati’s own Scarlet “scarlet_lv ” Robinson. Robinson follows Daniel Negreanu and Alan Boston this week to discuss online regulation (at the 1 hour 52 minute mark) breaking down the recent state bills that have been in the news. Robinson also gives her thoughts on where things go from here and what happens if these bills do not pass along with her thoughts on the recent alliances that some online sites are doing with some Las Vegas brick and mortar casinos. Listen to the show at the Two Plus Two Pokercast site or download it on iTunes.

DonkDown Radio:

Continuing on the legal front our very own Dan Michalski has been on a podcast tour since the cancelation of The Poker Beat. This week he returns to DonkDown for a new segment called the Poker Power Hour. Michalski comes on around the 32 minute mark to bring some of the recent legal news to the show. After he leaves the show the guys attempt to make some calls to those involved in the UB scandal before being joined by Shane “Shaniac” Schleger. You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

I know we all want more UB scandal stuff but this week I am going to start you off with a something else before I get into the two big hitters for UB info for the past few weeks.

Ante Up Poker Magazine:

This is the first time that the guys from Ante Up have hit my roundup but I do not think that you will be disappointed with this show. The guys get started off talking about how poker terms are finding their way into movies or TV shows before moving into a discussion about the first episode of Season 7 of High Stakes Poker. The meat of this show is an interview with Nolan Dalla, who is the WSOP Media Coordinator, along with being a man of massive poker knowledge. Dalla talks about the growth of the WSOP Circuit along with the future of poker regulation. Check out the show on Ante Up’s site or on iTunes.

Rabbit Hunt:

With the latest UB scandal information being dropped the one side we have not heard from on the podcast scene was that of UB. Well this week the crew from the Rabbit Hunt podcast got UB Pro Joe Sebok to come on for an interview to speak for UB, as he has done for UB since he joined. Joe discusses how UB wants people to come forward with information like what Makar has brought forward over the past few weeks. Sebok states that UB has reached out to Makar wanting to get any and all information that he may have so that it can be fully released to the public. Take a listen to the show on either the Cardrunners site or download it directly from iTunes to listen to this interview.

DonkDown Radio:

The guys are back this week recapping the bombshell that was dropped on them by Travis Makar, skip ahead to around 45 minutes into the show to get straight to more UB talk. After a brief sidetrack to talk to some random female before talking about the SuperAllah registry key that was a tool used to allow people to see the whole cards. At near the 1 hour 4 minute mark the guys start to break down the Rabbit Hunt interview with Sebok. Spartan Fox joins the show at the 2 hour 13 minute mark to discuss his interview, just a few minutes in Spartan Fox states that Paul Legget had recently stated that even though they are missing ten percent of the hand histories they have one hundred percent of the finical data. You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

February is not a huge month for tournaments, but that doesn’t mean there was a shortage of news. In fact, a very large part of the news this month was of the drama bomb variety, which provides easy cannon fodder for people such as myself and helps greatly in determining who came out ahead and who fell far, far behind. Given the sheer volume of stuff that happened, I have been forced agreed to do two of these a month, one for the first half and one for the second. If you want a weekly version of this, well, there is always my podcast, Rabbit Hunt (it’s a shameless plug but it was my excuse for not doing this every week…for the moment anyway). But enough rambling, let’s get going:

Winners

Jared Huggins (1) and Pokerstars (1): Thanks for the bait-and-switch Pokerstars! We thought you were a mean, faceless corporation that turned down a homeless poker player just cause and then you say “just kidding!” and he ends up on the show anyway. Jared Huggins is a huge hit over on 2+2, and he is scheduled to appear in the Big Game in the near future. Here’s hoping he not only wins, but wins big. That NAPT Passport (or whatever it is they are going to offer this year) is gonna be huge.

Matt Savage (1): Another LAPC, another huge Savage-tournament success. Sure the LAPC numbers aren’t where they were yesterday but it’s still pretty good considering there were a number of poker players that essentially said they wouldn’t give the Commerce business until they changed their stance on i-gambling. Although…I’m sure an exception was made for a $10k WPT tournament.

Donkdown Radio (1): They won this month for getting someone whom we are 99.44% certain is Travis Makar. These guys definitely are at the forefront of the “UB Sucks” crowd, and so getting someone that could blow a new hole in the current UB leadership is bound to be the best thing to happen to the show since…well…the last time something happened that was bad for UB I suppose. Of course, swords like this can be double-edged…and I would have simultaneously made these guys losers of the month too. Their saving grace is that it’s too early to tell what is going on in Makar’s head, and we have gotten a few nuggets out of the deal so far, so we will see what develops in the coming weeks. Certainly a good get though.

@pkrgssp (1): It’s not too often that someone comes out of nowhere, has a simple mission of just reviewing other people’s work, and gets a ton of attention in a short span of time. His blog is 100% worth adding to your list of things to read in a given day, and he has received props from various folks within the industry, so I think I will add my props by making him one of the winners of the month. Did he actually win anything poker-wise? No, but it might be a twitter/blog that many people will follow in the future (and quite possibly could become the critic version of Kevmath).

Losers

Sorel Mizzi (-1): SHOCKING NEWS ALERT! Sorel has been accused of cheating, this time in a live poker setting, and not because he managed to copy himself, though I think he would have made headlines sooner if he did. No, he loses out this time for being accused of dealing from the bottom of the deck by John Racener (as relayed through Shaun Deeb onto 2+2) which set off a firestorm of angry posts in Sorel’s general direction. Still, it’s he-said…he-said, and who would you believe more, the man perma-banned recently unbanned from Full Tilt for cheating or the 3-time Florida DUI champion?

The Bellagio Robber (-1: Plus -1 for every year served in prison): You pull off an Oceans 11 style robbery, then completely screw up everything after that. Oh, and he’s the son of a judge. Oh, and he tried selling chips that the Bellagio had changed out months ago. Genius!

Joe Sebok/Paul Leggett/UB (-1): No matter what the motives are, however, UB is again in the crosshairs, and whenever that happens, Joe Sebok is forced to pick up his cross and defend the site…again. Seriously I hope they are paying him Phil Hellmuth-levels of money, because otherwise Joe has got to be wondering wtf he’s still doing there. As for Paul Leggett, one cannot say “I never offered a bribe” and then have a leaked email that says “I’m offering a bribe.” Yea…context is probably important, but it certain doesnt look good.

Mer “PeachyMer” Brit (-1) and Pokerstars (0): Speaking of 2+2 controversies, the sleuths over at 2+2 felt like Mer Brit’s Team Pokerstars Pro deal was a little too good to be true…and well it probably was. Even Pokerstars admits that there are occasions that her account was used when she was not in the one operating it, including one where she took 2nd in a WCOOP event. There are enough holes and inconsistencies to make most people wonder what vetting process Pokerstars seems to have. Because I personally think I need to get a pro to take over my account if that’s what it takes to get a deal signed these days.

Coinflips

Federated Sports + Gaming League (0): Until I see a list of players, I’m not willing to give this league the chance some may say it deserves. They’ve inked a deal with CBS and have a schedule out, but as of right now no one is invited to play and the pro-am idea, while great, is not likely designed to actually get amateurs into their big events (honestly, how many amateurs would/should take their temporary tour cards and drop $20k of their own money into a shark tank?)

Peter Eastgate’s Retirement (0): On the one hand, I’m not particularly surprised that a young poker player that “retired” from the game has come back. On the other, Peter seemed like one of those people that would have stuck through it.

Haseeb Qurashi/Ashton Griffin/70-mile runs (0): Personally, I hated the amount of coverage this story got…which is why I spent over 10 minutes out of a 45 minute podcast talking about it, because I’m a hypocrite. Still, I think that while we got a fairly uncensored and in-depth look at some of the insane prop-betting that goes on these days in the poker world, I can’t help but thing we simultaneously saw some darker elements that just gives some ammunition to those that would like to see talk of online poker go away, and quickly.

Travis Makar (0): Jury is still out on this guy…or at least my jury is. If he has the information he is claiming, this completely longer than necessary leaking of incriminating evidence just feels like a squeeze. Who is he squeezing? No idea, but really if I would in Travis’ shoes, and I was broke, accused of cheating people of millions, and knew of people that had up to this point gotta away with it, maybe I’d do this too. OK…maybe not, but there is something deeper here that we might, as the media, be overlooking for the sake of the initial “ZOMG UB SCANDAL 3.0!” story.

The “Eff You, Sir/Madam” Award

Obviously there were enough stories to go around this month, but there is one particular entity that wins special mention, even if, at the moment, we don’t have a confirmation of additional shenanigans:

UB (-3…because fortunately for them my rules allow for a maximum penalty of -3): I joined the poker media unofficially in early 2010, and have been forced to repeatedly cover the UB scandal in all its various forms, from minute amounts of new evidence to the prior scandal to the encryption bullshit to Donkdown Radio’s repeated calls for the sites demolition to this. And honestly, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of talking about UB in the present tense, and I’m sick of constantly having to listen to people preach that “THIS IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG! THE AVALANCHE IS COMING!” Personally, I hope they do find something huge, and that they find it fast. I hope they find that every non-poker pro employee of UB is guilty of being involved, and that they owe $100 million more to players, or whatever number it will take for the site to go under. Not third-tier site under, under-under. And it’s not even because of any personal hatred toward UB (though I have plenty of that), but because it’s because of their continued existence that we keep having to bring up a shining example of what’s wrong with the poker industry not as a historical lesson, but as a current issue. That said, if all this Makar stuff turns into smoke and mirrors, then UB will be able to continue it’s existence….at least until the next minor change in evidence brings all of this up again. (Writer Note: I’m just tired of covering this, so until UB folds or is found innocent, or whatever, I will likely continue to have this vitriol. If they do go under eventually though, maybe this can be called the “UB-Memorial Eff You, Sir/Madam” award.)

Entity of the Month

A bit short on players this month, so the trophy has been changed to the “Entity of the Month” trophy (you’ll note it looks the same). I’ve done a fair job of limiting myself with those in the winner’s box this month, but I think if you have to have a negative for the story you have to show the positive.

Donkdown Radio (3): Sorry, this is easily the potentially biggest story of the month at a time where poker pros didn’t even manage to grace the winner’s circle. It’s certainly a case of “right place, right time”, but this could change the face of a scandal that has up to this point just seen a couple people come up with vague suggestions about what “really” happened. If things happen in the exact why the folks at Donkdown hope to see happen, there could be some very hard choices for the pros that are sponsored by the beleaguered site. Not really the site itself…I can’t see them making any “hard” choices necessarily. Either way, you can bet that they will get to the bottom of…whatever bottom they will get to with this.

I know that I didn’t talk about Norm McDonald’s premiere episode of High Stakes Poker, but I feel like everyone needs to see more than one episode of a new host before passing judgment. Come March 15th though…I should definitely have something to say…if there is anything worth saying anyway. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prep for another UB scandal related interview (no joke, unfortunately).

Alright everyone, I usually give you all three podcast to listen to, but since one of the shows has a run time of four plus hours we will only be bringing you two shows. This week we are bringing you some of the newest information from the Ultimate Bet scandal.

Rabbit Hunt:

Our friends over at the Rabbit Hunt started off this weeks show with some news but the part we are all interested in starts at the 16:00 mark. The guys got mookman5, who is a wealth of information when it comes to the Ultimate Bet scandal, to come on the show and discuss the latest Travis Makar bomb that was dropped the week before. They discuss reasons why Makar would be coming out at this point and speculate on this lawsuit that he made mention to throughout the interview. Take a listen to the show on either the Cardrunners site or download it directly from iTunes to listen to this interview.

DonkDown Radio:

I usually do not repeat shows in back to back weeks, but these guys are at the center of the poker podcast world this week and have came back from last weeks bombshell of a show with a followup show that has a run time of over four hours. Do not be worried though, we will tell you where to skip ahead to so that you can save some time.

22:30 – Bryan Micon starts to discuss his meeting with Travis Makar, where he discusses some of the documents that he saw during the meeting.

45:10 – Brad Booth joins the show to discuss being cheated by the super-user accounts.

Yesterday we brought you the transcripts of the Travis Makar transcripts thanks to the guys over at DonkDown. In the short synopsis that we gave you we made mention that Bryan Micon had planned on meeting up with Makar to take a look at some of the documents he supposedly was in possession of.

Well that meeting happened yesterday and Micon was able to walk away with more than just some mental pictures of the documents. He actually got Makar to let him leave with one of the many emails that he made mention of during the interview. You can view that email and Micon’s thoughts of the meet-up over on the DonkDown Forums.

If you are still wanting some more information on the meeting then be sure to check out the DonkDown Radio show tonight at 10:30 PM ET where Micon will be giving more details and be answering questions throughout the show.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, UB COO Paul Leggett has posted his own response to the original Travis Makar interview here.